EA Signs Exclusive Publishing Deal With Disney For Star Wars Games

If only Star Wars Day hadn't been over the weekend, the symmetry would have been beautiful. Disney and EA have just announced an exclusive, multi-year deal that puts the publisher at the helm of new Star Wars titles for the "core gaming audience."

The arrangement, which was just announced, covers all platforms and the "most popular" game genres. Disney has not ceded all rights, retaining control to create new games for online, social, and mobile audiences. This explains the cancelation of Star Wars 1313 (which we had hoped might be reversed), the rumored Xbox Live Arcade Battlefront title, and more.

Unfortunately, this makes it unlikely we'll receive the Stardock- or Firaxis-developed strategy titles we hoped for, but maybe Battlefront will see new life with DICE. EA will report its fiscal year 2013 earnings tomorrow, and this is likely to help nudge investor confidence upward.

Frank Gibeau, President of EA Labels has also posted about the deal on the official EA Blog. Based on the call for ideas and suggestions at the bottom, it looks like they might want to stay internal, at least to start with. The blog entry indicates the Twitter accounts of DICE, Visceral Games, and BioWare.

“The Force is strong with this one.”

I love that line. It instantly transports me back to my childhood, to an epic world that had a powerful influence on my life. Like hundreds of millions of people, I am a true believer – someone who can’t get enough of the story, the culture, and the ethos of Star Wars.

Today, The Walt Disney Company has announced that they have chosen EA to create new Star Wars experiences for gamers worldwide.

The magic of Star Wars is interwoven into the worlds, characters, planets and amazing battles. It is a universe that lends itself perfectly to gaming. Our agreement unlocks a whole new future of Star Wars games that will span consoles, PCs, tablets, mobile and more.

While we don’t have any details to share today on specific titles, our development teams are already brimming with design ideas. The EA Studios that will develop these games are some of the most innovative and popular creative teams in the world, and include DICE and Visceral, in addition to the BioWare team, which is already developing for the Star Wars franchise. These imaginative teams will make games that may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories. Powering it all will be the Frostbite 3 development engine – guaranteeing incredible graphic fidelity, environments and characters.

We have lots of ideas, but we want to hear from you. Tell us what kind of games you want to play. Send us your suggestions and tag @EA_DICE@VisceralGames@BioWare and #starwarsnextgen.

This is bittersweet...on one hand, it's new Star Wars, but on the other hand, it's EA...oh well, nothing to really say until we see actual games being put into development.

Also, does this mean Disney is making the game and EA is publishing it, or are EA's developing teams making them? Because a BioWare Star Wars game might be pretty cool. However, if Disney is making the game, it's probably just to go along with the new movies...

EDIT: Nevermind, GI has gracefully answered my question. There is hope. DICE or Bioware either one would probably make a great Star Wars game.